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Welcome to CycloneFanatic.com. I notice you haven't taken the time to register yet, now is as good of time as any:)

Web-site design?

Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?

PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.

Re: Web-site design?

Originally Posted by nhclone

Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?

PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.

I have a buddy that is building one. He hasn't ever built one before and is just using a "how-to" book. It's been pretty successful, but a lot more work than he had intended.

Re: Web-site design?

Originally Posted by nhclone

Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?

PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.

Do you have some software? Photoshop,Fireworks, Dreamweaver are a good start. As a student of faculty member at most colleges--you can buy for a huge discount.

Re: Web-site design?

Originally Posted by nhclone

Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?

PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.

I do web design for a living, and also do some moonlighting. If you are looking for help, PM me.

Re: Web-site design?

I have made several websites that are actually Wordpress.com blogs (not Wordpress.org). It requires no coding skills whatsoever.

It costs $17/year for your own URL. If you are just going for a site that just has information, this is the way to go. If you want to sell stuff online, or have some other special features, you're probably better off with a site not hosted/maintained via wordpress.com.

Wordpress.org gives you pretty much all of the tools that Wordpress.com has, except you have more flexibility, and can host it on a different server.

Re: Web-site design?

Originally Posted by colbycheese

I have made several websites that are actually Wordpress.com blogs (not Wordpress.org). It requires no coding skills whatsoever.

It costs $17/year for your own URL. If you are just going for a site that just has information, this is the way to go. If you want to sell stuff online, or have some other special features, you're probably better off with a site not hosted/maintained via wordpress.com.

Wordpress.org gives you pretty much all of the tools that Wordpress.com has, except you have more flexibility, and can host it on a different server.

But then you have a wordpress site like every other dude living in his parents basement. And 99% of the time it looks like a crappy wordpress site.

Re: Web-site design?

I have a domain name registered, and I edit our company website, so I am going to give it a try, but who knows how good it will look. Probably going to use Wordpress since I'm familiar with it. Just have to get the hosting aspect figured out/decided.

Re: Web-site design?

I've made several over the years (FreeLucca.com as an example... was that really 5 years ago?). I always do it from scratch (with a text editor, not a WYSIWYG editor) so that I can control all the layout and CSS usage.

Re: Web-site design?

Thanks for all the advice guys. Got it up and running end of last week. Pretty basic for now as I learn more along the way. Not using wordpress for now, I'll see where things go. The beauty of it, I can write about anything I want. The first real article I posted was picking a national champion for college football.....I'm less qualified for that than Steve Deace. LOL

Kind of just going to play around for a while and write articles as topics come to me. It's not in any way going to be a money making blog, but the experience designing the website should help with some business ideas down the road.

Re: Web-site design?

The hate is they almost always end up looking like a templated wordpress site. Get a real designer to make it look good. Even better yet get a real coder to make it function well.

Or spend the $70 for a nice template.

HTML websites are static pages, used only to show information.

Wordpress is an open source CMS. Developers will allows be making it better, adding new widgets, designing new templates, etc. Yes, if you use the standard template they give you, then it will look like everyone else's. I paid the $70 for a template and changed the coding as I wished in Dreamweaver.

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